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College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

washingtonpost.com

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Re: College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

#71

Post by jacoblyles »

shard wrote: post #63
jacoblyles wrote: post #11

"You could just have a party where you all played pin the tail on the donkey or musical chairs or something. But that is just not done in this part of D.C. If you did that, you would be talked about." That's a microcosm of what I didn't like about DC. The culture is very status oriented and judgmental.

I think that humans in general are very status oriented and judgmental. Hacker culture is the same, we just focus on a different set of status indicators and pass judgment on a different set of criteria. Other cultures' values and judgments look unpleasant and silly to us, just as ours look unpleasant and silly to them.

You have a point. Maybe I just didn't like the city because it didn't share my values.

Re: College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

#72

Post by shawnyar217 »

brandnewlow wrote: post #8
jpcx01 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the summary. This useless fluff piece lost me after the first page.

How can you render judgment if you didn't read past page one?

Maybe a different kind of summary would be helpful for certain people.

The article is roughly divided into two parts:

Part #1: How this regular guy, a college dropout, an apparently average Joe, can walk into a room full of parents and children and own them, making the children laugh uncontrollably, the mothers secretly want to sleep with him, the fathers impressed by him. Then they gladly PAY him and he earns six figures working only on weekends. At a business he started by pretending to talk to customers on his cell phone.

Part #2: How every business is made up of real people, with real personality and real-life problems. And how some people (all people?) who have fantastic qualities can also be deeply flawed in other ways.

Part #3: Yes I know I said there were only two parts. The third part is afterwards when you realize this essay that started off as a not-too-serious business article about marketing was in fact an amazing work of art and that it won a PULITZER PRIZE for a reason.

Now go read the whole article.

Re: College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

#75

Post by mynameishere »

jpcx01 wrote: post #6
brandnewlow wrote: post #3

This is a somewhat old article. It's also very, very long. It's also one of the greatest newspaper feature stories I've ever read. It was passed around the writers' circles I was part of when the Post ran it years ago. Here's the gist (from memory): 1. Guy has a gift for connecting with little kids. 2. Guy has good sense of humor. 3. Guy decides to do magic shows at pre-school birthday parties for a living. 4. Guy ta…

Thanks for the summary. This useless fluff piece lost me after the first page.

What's with the downmod party? I've read 100s of feature articles and this one was pretty dull, especially at the beginning. It does get better towards the end, but there's just nothing great about this guy, or his life, or his life-in-words. He seems really pathetic to me. Makes decent money playing a clown, and then throws it away in Atlantic City on gambling (and probably hookers and blow).

Eh. Except for the "clown" part, how is he different from a million other losers?

Re: College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

#76

Post by Retric »

squidbot wrote: post #13

3 years ago suburbanites were swimming in money and had nothing better to do with it. I doubt this guy is still pulling in a full weekend of @$300 shows.

Some DC suburbs are still under 3% unemployment. Government consulting in one form or another is vary stable work when you can get it.

EX: I work for a multi-billion dollar company that grew over 10% last year while being vary profitable. Many people I work with have a combined family income over 250k/year, young children, and little free time.

Re: College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

#77

Post by h34t »

biohacker42 wrote: post #68
decode wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the article also won the Pulitzer for writing this brilliant piece about skill, art, and modern life: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04...

... their son had strung rubber bands across his dresser drawers and was replicating classical tunes by ear, moving drawers in and out to vary the pitch. Damn, I guess that answers the question: Would he still play music if he had been born to an illiterate family in a desolate rural part of a third world country? Yep, he still would.

Except many people in those parts are so malnourished that their minds don't develop properly.

Re: College dropout makes $100,000 a year, with a two-day workweek

#79

Post by kragen »

h34t wrote: post #77
biohacker42 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... their son had strung rubber bands across his dresser drawers and was replicating classical tunes by ear, moving drawers in and out to vary the pitch. Damn, I guess that answers the question: Would he still play music if he had been born to an illiterate family in a desolate rural part of a third world country? Yep, he still would.

Except many people in those parts are so malnourished that their minds don't develop properly.

Or they die before reaching 5 years old.
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